Nations send helicopters, doctors, dogs and coffins

By Ben Fenton in Washington

12:00AM GMT 16 Jan 2001

INTERNATIONAL aid was on its way yesterday to El Salvador, where damage to infrastructure as a result of the earthquake was presenting serious problems for rescue operations and the country's economic recovery.

America and Mexico sent helicopters. The Spanish sent sniffer dogs. Doctors and nurses arrived from Turkey with rescue equipment. Other Latin America countries contributed paramedics and medical supplies.

President Francisco Flores sent out an urgent appeal for overseas help at the weekend. Yesterday, he asked Colombia to provide up to 3,000 coffins to help dispose of the dead before they became an additional health hazard.

Money was contributed, too. Britain promised £600,000 in emergency aid; the European Commission promised £1.25 million and Japan about £430,000. Italy offered £2.4 million in aid and added that it would send a team of doctors and charity workers with expertise in reconstruction efforts to assess the situation and recommend the best ways to spend the money.

Roy Williams of the United States Agency for International Development, said last night: "One of our biggest problems has been to set up working communications systems so that we can distribute these supplies in a rational way."

El Salvador's fragile economy is likely to be severely damaged by the earthquake, which struck at a critical moment in the harvesting of the coffee crop, the country's principal export.

As well as damage to the crop - already expected to be poor - on the bush, roads leading to the main harvesting areas have been destroyed, as has the main highway to the port in Guatemala which would have handled the 100,000 tons of coffee that El Salvador was expecting to export this year.